The Asra Media Office published a series of messages from the prisoners of the Gaza Strip, held in the notorious torture camps like Sde Teiman, Anatot, and others. These camps are known for having even worse conditions than the horrendous conditions found in the “regular” prisons of the “Israel Prison Service.” Sexual and physical assault and torture, psychological abuse, denial of medical care, forced starvation and other forms of abuse are the norm. These camps are set aside for Palestinian prisoners seized from Gaza by the invading genocidal occupation forces, including a number of aid-seekers who have been kidnapped from the infamous US-Zionist “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” death traps, where over 1400 Palestinians have been martyred. Palestinians in the torture camps are by and large denied access to lawyers, and their messages rely on the courage and bravery of freed prisoners to convey their words and sentiments to the world.
Palestinian prisoners from Gaza are classified as “unlawful combatants,” a term used specifically by the Zionist regime to allow it to detain Palestinians from Gaza without charge, trial or recourse — similar to the administrative detention orders used against Palestinians from the West Bank, Jerusalem and 1948 occupied Palestine; however, with even fewer rights attached.
Their call is a demand on the conscience of all in the world to organize, mobilize and act to confront the Zionist-imperialist genocide and do everything possible to bring it to an end.
From Inside the Death Camps — A Message from the Gaza Prisoners Classified as “Unlawful Combatants”
From inside the death camps…we cry out with silenced voices. We write with our bodies. We send to the world a message that will not die.
We are stripped, starved, hung for hours, beaten until our bones lose their strength. We live in cells and camps without light…We decay from within, and our bodies wither little by little. No doctor, no lawyer, no trial, no law… We are nothing in the eyes of the occupation, just labeled “unlawful combatants” so that killing us becomes easier, without accountability or oversight.
No visits, no phone calls, no trial, no news of our families— sometimes not even names. We carry numbers on our skin…not treated as prisoners, but as corpses waiting their turn – in a grave, or in a deal.
This is Sde Teiman… This is a machine of death for human beings. Here, a person is stripped of every human attribute.
We are the prisoners of the Gaza Strip. Since our capture, we’ve been branded with a strange label: “Unlawful Combatants:” an accusation without trial, a conviction without evidence.
We have been stripped of our humanity: No clothing, no bedding, no medicine. We are crushed under torture. In the cells, we die from hunger, nakedness, and oppression.
To the world: We are not numbers. We are sons, fathers, loved ones. We have mothers and children. We have the right to survive and the right to freedom. We are those who survived the bombing only to be buried alive in death camps.
Cry out, break your silence. Stop this hell… Save the prisoners of Gaza, for the night has grown long in the death prisons of the occupation.
A Message from the Death Camp: Sde Teiman
From here…from behind the electrified fences, and from within the walls where no light enters, from the “Sde Teiman” camp, where life is abducted, and names are forgotten. We write to you to cling to what remains in this world of conscience.
We, the prisoners of Gaza, are being held in silence, without charge, without trial, without the right to speak.
Ask about us — you will not find our names on any lists, nor our faces in news bulletins. We have been erased from memory, reduced to numbers in the notebooks of “unlawful combatants” under laws that do not recognize our humanity.
We are forced to stand until our feet swell. We are denied water, sleep, food, and clean air.
Some of us are stripped of our clothes and our dignity, then left to rot in sealed cells.
Here, every form of torture is practiced in the name of “security.”
We are not even allowed to see our lawyers, or to know what our “crime” is.
Our mothers do not know whether we are alive or buried under the earth. Our children wait for a picture, a sign, or even a piece of news, but nothing comes.
We are not “unlawful combatants.” We are fathers, students, doctors, fishermen, and workers… They took us from the streets, from the so-called “safe corridors,” and from the destroyed homes.
We write to you from total darkness, and we hope that our words reach some light…to a heart that has not yet turned to stone, to a conscience in this world that can still say: “Stop.”
We ask for nothing but justice…Is there anyone left in this world who will listen? Is there anyone left in this world who can still speak in our name?
Our Voices from Behind the Walls
We write to you from behind iron locks, from the cells that have grown too narrow for our dreams, from walls that preserve only the echo of groans, from a night without windows—and no morning near.
We are the prisoners, women and men, carrying entire homelands in our hearts, and carrying on our bodies the marks of long chains.
We are those who wait for justice that has long been delayed, counting time by the pulse of hope.
We are the mothers from whom tenderness is ripped from our chests, deprived of our little ones and their voices. We stitch Eid clothes in our imagination with tears.
We are the sick, left to slowly bleed from the cancer that devours us without medicine, and from pain that moans without anyone to listen.
We are the children who grew up too soon, who knew no toys but shackles.
We are the women prisoners, resisting humiliation with patience, daily searches with dignity, and darkness with steadfast hearts. We are all dragged to court in shackles, tried for a cry, for a tear, or for love of Palestine.
Yet despite everything—we do not break. Because within us, the flame of freedom is not extinguished. And beyond the bars, there are faces we love, waiting for our return and telling our story.
On this day, we send you our faint voice, but it is full of determination:
We want our freedom. We want justice—not the world’s silence. We want to live as human beings, not as numbers behind walls.
So do not forget us. Write about us. Shout for us. Be our voice in the streets, for we are waiting for life from you.
Discover more from Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
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